... cause that's one bad, nostril-hair close-up running in at least the online edition . And, oh yeah, virtually nobody has yet managed to sign up for insurance through the Delaware marketplace: Delaware’s application numbers were tiny, too. A total of 4,185 applications were completed, covering 7,650 people. Of those, 1,669 people were judged eligible for a subsidy and 1,822 were reportedly eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Only 431 had chosen a marketplace plan through November, up from 97 in October. If I recall correctly, we were out to sign up another 25,000 for Medicaid and about 35,000 through the exchange (not counting those who now have to sign up because they lost their prior insurance). So that means ... at this rate most of them can just wait for Medicare to kick in.

Remember a couple days ago when I told you that you could never trust large organizations--governmental or otherwise? And remember that I used the example of the government unilaterally changing my military retirement benefits to their advantage? Well, they just did it again in the new budget agreement to deal (supposedly) the effects of the sequestration. What I find darkly funny is that they did it by reducing retirement COLAs (Cost of Living Adjustment) to one point BELOW the inflation rate.  In other words, the so-called Cost of Living Adjustment has now been specifically engineered to ALWAYS be less than what the government determines is the change in the Cost of Living. So for my liberal friends who believe everyone should pay more taxes, isn't taking away money you were already promised the equivalent of taking away money you already earned? Shorter:  gotta love the government when it increases military spending by screwing veterans and retirees.

This is not, as you will note from the credentials of the three political scientists conducting the study, some fly-by-night organization or ideologically based think-tank: The core of the argument made at a conference last month at the University of Akron by the political scientists Edward Carmines of Indiana University, Michael Ensley of Kent State University and Michael Wagner of the University of Wisconsin lies in the graphic representation in  Figure 1 , which shows the distribution of political orientations in the United States. Here's what they found (and the promised Figure 1): According to their analysis of  American National Election Studies  poll data from the last 40 years, the electorate is divided into five ideological categories: liberals, who make up 19 percent of voters ; conservatives, 27 percent; libertarians, 22 percent ; populists, 11 percent; and, in the lighter gray center, moderates, at 21 percent. Of course the bad news is that each o...

Sunday's WNJ will publish a major article on job losses and the changing nature of employment in Delaware. This comes fast on the heels of the Fast Food Thursday demonstrations for a higher minimum wage, and Representative Byron Short's sudden public conversion to that cause. There's an awful lot, however, hidden between the lines of the story, including stunning admissions by the state's political and economic leaders that actually doing anything about the plight of Delaware's low-wage workers is really nowhere on their radar. In fact, what you discover is that, at least from the perspective of our top political and economic leaders, Delaware is NOT a Blue State. Think I'm kidding?  Take a look.

At first when I read this comment on the story kilroy linked about Councilwoman Shabazz blaming violence in Wilmington  I thought it was satire--bad satire, but satire nonetheless. Then I read it again.  Oh, boy. But first, some context:  the sheer idiocy of blaming violence in Wilmington on the long-lasting impact of slavery is that to do so does exactly what so many people would like to do:  it makes the violence about race and not about poverty, a crumbling city, and personal choice.  I won't even go into the fact that in Wilmington if you were to try to make this argument you would be arguing about Jim Crow, desegregation, and the failure of progressive politics, NOT the impact of slavery. Yet let us not detract from the comment of the day:   Wilmington was a dumping ground for the Underground Railroad. Thank the progressive social engineers of the pre-civil war period for giving us the gift that keeps on giving. The South had "slaves" that wer...

Read today's article on Fisker's creditors carefully, and you will discover that Democratic Governor Jack Markell stuck a gigantic finger in the eye of both New Castle County and the Red Clay Consolidated School District: First, this: The State of Delaware, which promised Fisker $21 million in incentives and gave them much of that, is considered a secured creditor, said Alan Levin, state economic development director. The state holds a security interest in the Boxwood Road plant, even though Delaware is third in line to collect on that debt, behind Hybrid Technology , which bought the federal government’s loan, and Silicon Valley Bank. So Markell and Levin at least got themselves in the line to collect a few pennies on the dollar, and that's what Markell later admits it will be: As for what Delaware can recoup, Gov. Jack Markell said, “I think it’s limited. If you look at the resources likely to be available and the demand on those resources, I think it’s going to b...

Over at Delawareliberal cassandra has another post up about crime in Wilmington.  cassandra and I have our differences, but she continues to do excellent fact-based blogging about the nature of the problem, the potential solutions, and the general ineptitude/malaise of the current governmental apparatus to solve the problem. As cassandra knows and has blogged repeatedly, this ain't rocket science.  There are a lot of evidence-proven strategies (like full-scale community policing with a constitutionally careful stop and frisk approach) that could make a dent, a serious dent, in crime and violence in Wilmington. The problem is--in this one-party state--the Democrats don't care enough about reducing what amounts to urban terrorism in Wilmington to do anything about it. Instead, last year, they supported a State budget that included millions to bail out casinos and tens of millions in corporate welfare rather than invest in either inner-city education or crime fighting. In...